iPad Mini 2 In Gold: Slate Appears With Touch ID

All the way upstream in the wild west (or Wild East, if you prefer) of secondhand parts stores sourced from what's supposedly Apple's own assembly line appears a Gold colored iPad mini 2. This device follows with the release of the iPhone 5s in Gold and the suggestion that the iPad's 5th generation release will kick out the Gold as well. Here a set of up-close photos also suggest that this model will be released with Touch ID – aka the fingerprint sensor delivered with the iPhone 5s as well.

While it's just as possible that these images were captured of some extremely well-made 3rd-hand parts, the collection of iPhone parts that popped up in the weeks before the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c appeared painted a rather accurate picture. What we can assume here is that the iPad mini 2 will be the second in a collection of iDevices that work with Touch ID and aim for not just the regular entertainment user, but the business user as well.

While we've still got some time before we see the full effect of this value-added feature for the Apple mobile device family, it's assumed that business users will take on the iPhone 5s at an even greater rate than before. According to our own review of the iPhone 5s:

"Right now there's no way to assign different access privileges depending on whose finger it is that's recognized, though it's not hard to imagine an iPad that uses Touch ID to seamlessly log into different user accounts." – Vincent Nguyen

The iPad mini 2 will quite likely be delivered with a Gold iteration, if only because of the extreme quickness with which the iPhone 5s in Gold seems to have sold internationally. Meanwhile the iPhone 5s in Gold sees major price hikes here in the United States on auction sites like eBay as stock is replenished – it'd be nuts to skip the same color for the next generation slates, that is. Have a peek at the timeline below for more clues as to the build and make of the iPad mini 2 as well – we'll likely see this beast before the end of October!

Also below you'll find a small gallery of renderings – aka made in a 3D rendering application – of the gold iPad mini aside the iPad 5. These are illustrations from Martin Hajek, a fellow that's also been notoriously accurate in predicting the outcome of final models for Apple mobile devices in the past.